By Nieves ZúñigaReviewed by: Marie Chêne

U4 Helpdesk Answer 2018:1

The impact of 'islands ofintegrity'

DisclaimerAll views in this text are the author(s)’, and may differ from the U4 partner agencies’policies.

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Keywordsanti-corruption institutions - public sector - public sector reform

Publication typeU4 Helpdesk AnswerThe U4 Anti-corruption helpdesk is a free research service exclusively for staff from ourU4 partner agencies. This service is a collaboration between U4 and TransparencyInternational (TI) in Berlin, Germany. Researchers at TI run the helpdesk.

Table of contents

Query 1

Caveat 1

Summary 1

1. How do islands of integrity emerge in corruptenvironments?

2

Institutional aspects 3

Political aspects 4

A practical implementation 4

2. The impact of islands of integrity 5

Impact from creating a "corruption-free" performance 5

Impact on greater efficiency 7

Impact on the wider system 8

The motivation behind the institutional reform 9

Interaction with the external context 10

3. Challenges and opportunities for a wider impact 11

Challenges 11

Opportunities 12

References 15

a

About the author

Nieves ZúñigaResearch and Knowledge Coordinator

Query

Is there evidence for so-called islands of integrity to effect sustainable publicsector transformations at the national level and, if so, please provide anoverview of the research and evidence?

Caveat

There is no substantive evidence-based research on the sustainable impact of

islands of integrity on the wider system, nor is there enough specific literature

on islands of integrity. Nevertheless, the broader literature on positive outliers

in public administration offers guidance on where and what to look at when

thinking about the impact of islands of integrity.

Summary

Islands of integrity are public institutions that reduce corruption despite being

surrounded by endemic corruption. Research on islands of integrity and

documented empirical evidence on their impact in the broad context is very

scarce. Moreover, their impact is context dependent and would require case-by-

case analysis. Nevertheless, the literature on positive outliers in public

administration offers valuable guidance to reflect on the different impact levels

and the wider impact of islands of integrity.

Islands of integrity have an impact at three levels. One is the impact caused by

their “corruption-free” performance. A second level is their impact in fulfilling

their institutional purpose. The third level is their effect on the wider system.

One crucial obstacle to the wider impact of islands of integrity is the absence

and limitations of methodologies to identify those positive outliers. The lessons

that can be learned and potentially transferred to other institutions and sectors

depend on making existing outstanding cases visible. Islands of integrity also

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offer opportunities regarding the identification and amplification of knowledge

and the stimulation of innovation.

1. How do islands of integrity emerge incorrupt environments?

The term “islands of integrity” refers to public institutions that are successful at

reducing corruption despite being situated in a context of endemic corruption.

While there is no formal definition of islands of integrity in the literature,

generally they have the following characteristics: i) they are self-contained

areas that distinguish themselves from other public institutions in the same

country in that they are corrupt-free and effective within corrupt and

dysfunctional national contexts; ii) they are not focused on fighting corruption

but rather they have their own institutional mandate; iii) they fulfil their

mandate “corruption free” or with considerably lower levels of corruption

compared to the rest of public institutions in the same context.

Considering the difficulty of completely eradicating corruption, there is not a

stipulated threshold to determine how corrupt a public institution can be in its

performance to still be defined as an island of integrity. The size of its impact

on reducing corruption in its own operations depends on how corrupt the

broader context is.

The reflection on islands of integrity is generally part of a broader field of

research on the existence of positive outliers in public administration from a

development perspective. Public institutions providing services efficiently

despite being in an environment dominated by bad management and bad

governance receive several names in the literature such as “pockets of

productivity’” (Daland 1981), “pockets of effectiveness” (Leonard 2008; Roll

2011a), ‘pockets of efficiency’ (Geddes 1994), “islands of excellence”

(Therkildsen 2008), “islands of effectiveness” (Crook 2012) and “positive

deviance” (Andrews 2013).

The research on positive outliers in public administration has been mainly

focused on how they can emerge in corrupt environments rather than on their

impact. There are two lines of thought regarding the causes of their emergence:

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for some authors, it is due to endogenous institutional aspects; for others, it has

to do with contextual political factors.

Institutional aspects

After analysing 29 institutions in six countries, Grindle (1997) emphasises

organisational culture as the main reason that explains the success of some

institutions over others. Organisational culture includes aspects such as:

• Management style: a management style that encourages participation,

flexibility, teamwork, problem solving and equity exists in 12 out of the 15

good performers studied by Grindle; whereas a management style

characterized by top-down decision making, favouritism, lack of

consultation, and poor capacity to organise or direct work exists in 10 out of

the 14 poor performers.

• Performance expectations: it refers to give employees clear signals on how

diligently they should work and about the quality of work expected from

them.

• Autonomy in personnel management: to have autonomy for decisions about

hiring, promotion and firing personnel might prevent centralised decisions

on the placement or displacement of people based on party affiliations or

personal contacts. It would also increase the capacity of the institution to set

performance standards and hold employees accountable to meet those

standards.

• Sense of mission: it is considered essential for the commitment of workers

to the goals of the institution and get motivation from them. Components of

having sense of mission are: professionalism, sense of being unique and

special, self-believe in the own capacity, external recognition of skills and

capacities, strong sense of service, and pride in contributing to the good that

the institution is doing to society. Sense of mission is independent of salary

or other type of remuneration.

Along with the ability of an institution to carry out successful managerial

reforms, Leonard (2008) adds organisational aspects as explanatory factors of

effective agencies in weak governance contexts. Among those aspects are:

• Organisational autonomy: the organization has autonomy from political

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interference in its decisions, especially regarding personnel and financial

decisions. This autonomy has to be earned by convincing powerful groups

in the society of the value of the organisation’s autonomy and that it should

be protected and enhanced.

• Specificity of benefits and incentives: the organization’s outcomes should

be intense, immediate, identifiable without difficulty, and focused on a self-

conscious group.

Political aspects

Roll (2011a) analyses the existence of “pockets of effectiveness” from a

political sociology perspective where public administration is understood as a

political process inserted in a socio-political context. From the analysis of two

case studies in Nigeria – the National Agency for Food and Drug

Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and the National Agency for the

Prohibition of Traffic in Persons and Other Related Matters (NAPTIP) – he

concludes that the key political mechanism for the emergence of pockets of

effectiveness is the interaction of political interest and function. Political

interest is important because it is necessary to overcome the political obstacles

that prevent the well-functioning of public institutions in a certain society.

However, even if necessary, political will is not enough for the existence of

pocket of effectiveness. Other functional aspects such as leadership and

managerial factors are also necessary. Thus, political interest of a decisive

political actor (or group of actors) for a particular public service is a

precondition for other managerial aspects to play a significant role in the

emergence of pockets of effectiveness.

A practical implementation

Inspired by the research on pockets of effectiveness, Ronald MacLean Abaroa

and Ana Vasilache, under the leadership of Robert Klikgaard, have elaborated

the “Islands of Integrity” Anti-Corruption Methodology, awarded with the UN

Public Service Award. A key pillar of this methodology is the creation of the

right context to prevent and influence dishonest behaviour by lowering the

monopoly of public services, reducing discretion in decision-making processes,

and increasing transparency and accountability (Vasilache 2016). A second

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pillar is to transform public leaders and managers from judges or prosecutors

into institutional reformers. In other words, this methodology proposes to

leaders and managers a new approach following a rational/strategic

methodology to change not only corrupt individuals but also public policies and

organisational systems that foster corruption. The third pillar is the promotion

of a participatory process that involves engaging with multiple stakeholders for

the implementation of the reforms. This methodology has been applied since

2009 in more than 12 Central, Eastern and South-eastern European countries

and 30 local governments. Information about their impact on the wider system

could not be found.

2. The impact of islands of integrity

There is no substantive empirical research on the sustainable impact of islands

of integrity or data about the scope of that impact. Nevertheless, the research

available suggests the different levels at which islands of integrity can have an

impact and how it occurs. Islands of integrity have three types of impact: i) the

impact produced from a “corruption-free” performance; ii) impact from

fulfilling their institutional mandate; and iii) impact on the wider system.

Impact from creating a "corruption-free" performance

To provide a ‘corruption-free’ performance in a highly corrupt national context

requires going against the norm and adopting measures to compensate for the

contextual constraints. For example, to promote the necessary institutional

reforms, institutions might face challenges like the opposition from the

patronage-based political-administrative elite, as experienced in the case of

Nigeria (Roll 2013). To overcome these challenges implies readjustments in the

political and governmental system. For instance, President Obasanjo in Nigeria

chose to balance his cabinet and his appointments including greater

consideration of regional, religious and ethnic representation, and rewarding

powerful party members and friends (Roll 2013).

One of the most powerful impacts of the institutional reform involved in those

readjustments is the change of culture within the institution. For instance, to

recruit members of staff according to merit and education in a patrimonial

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society implies breaking with the usual appointment practice, based more on

personal preferences, which can generate opposition of the elites. Another

example is to install a culture of accountability within the institution, or to

discipline or dismiss underperforming members of staff (Roll 2013), changing

procedures and expectations previously shaped by patrimonial practice.

The extent of the impact produced from the changes leading to achieve a

corruption-free performance is mainly determined by the approach used to

establish the institutional reform. Andrews (2013) analyses two competing

approaches to explain positive deviance in public sector reforms in

development: “solution and leader driven change” (SLDC) and “problem driven

iterative adaptation” (PDIA).

In the SLDC approach, solutions are the focus of change and are fully identified

from the beginning. The institutional reform is completely planned in advance

and implemented as planned by a leader, and it is expected to achieve a pure

pre-designed best practice solution. In contrast, in PDIA, the institutional

change is motivated by a problem, not a solution. Reforms and progress are

achieved through trial and error with multiple agents playing different

leadership roles. The product in this case is the result of many influences and it

is fitted to the particular context.

The potential impact of each of these approaches is quite different because they

engage differently with the context. The impact on the context of a reform

following a PDIA approach is bigger than with a SLDC approach. PDIA tends

to be “the approach required when reforms are in particularly complex areas,

contextual impediments are severe and difficult to navigate, and there are not

clear solutions” (Andrews 2013: 23, 24). Thus, it is expected that PDIA would

have a broader impact because it is more localised and responsive to contextual

needs. It also involves constant improvements and adaptability along the way,

such as the formation and skills improvement of local people involved, and it

requires the engagement of a broad set of agents with responsibility to

implement the reforms. By contrast, SLDC “could work when reforms are more

technical and do not demand contextual fit” (Andrews 2013: 23, 24). The type

of reform brought by SLDC requires smaller interventions, and its impact is

expected to be more focused on one institutional aspect but potentially deeper.

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Impact on greater efficiency

The impact of islands of integrity derived from fulfilling their institutional

mandate would depend on the characteristics and type of institution. Institutions

devoted to providing basic public services would have a different impact than

judicial institutions. An important aspect in this regard is that to do outstanding

work without or with lower corruption does not necessarily mean that they are

successful in fulfilling their institutional purpose.

For example, there is a widely held notion in the literature of a causal

relationship between bribery patterns and the quality of service delivery

(Deininger and Mpuga 2005; Kaufmann et al. 2008). Following this argument,

an expected impact of islands of integrity devoted to providing public services

would be the improvement of service delivery. However, Peiffer and

Armytage’s (2017) research on Uganda’s health sector challenges this

assumption. Uganda’s health sector is considered an island of integrity that

managed to significantly reduce bribery in the sector. Nevertheless, Peiffer and

Armytage’s findings show that a reduction of bribery did not improve

healthcare service delivery as a result, and patients did not receive more

affordable healthcare or a better service.

A disconnection between “clean performance” and “efficient performance”

raises questions on how the former can have a greater influence on the latter

and, thus, to effect a positive performance impact of the islands of integrity.

Joshi (2010), in assessing the impact of several transparency and accountability

initiatives in service delivery, finds that a range of accountability initiatives

have been effective in their immediate goal, but the evidence of impact on the

accessibility and quality of services is mixed. The author reaches the

overarching lesson that context matters. Among the contextual factors that

contributed in varying degrees to the successful cases are the nature and

strength of civil society movements, the relative political strength of service

providers (for example, through unions), the ability of cross-cutting coalitions

to push reforms and an active media, among others (2010). For example, the

presence of an active and independent media and a civil society willing to use

information to press for accountability and reforms, as well as public officials

catalysed by evidence of the poor performance of their agencies, were critical in

influencing the impact of report cards in Bangalore (Joshi 2010).

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Impact on the wider system

The impact of islands of integrity on the wider system refers to their capacity to

trigger public sector transformations at the broader national context, for

example by the adoption of accountability or transparency mechanisms working

in the islands of integrity by other institutions. The empirical evidence on the

“spill-over” effect of islands of integrity in the wider system is very scarce.

Nevertheless, there are some attempts to provide theoretical support to this

potential impact.

Roll (2011b) introduces three theoretical models of how pockets of

effectiveness could trigger broader public sector transformation. One is the

‘demonstration effect’, which occurs when the performance of the pocket of

effectiveness attracts the attention of the government (for example, if it might

want to improve service delivery in the context of elections) or of the civil

society (who can lobby for a broader sector reform). Following the literature on

norm diffusion, in the case of the government being attracted to the idea of

transforming the public sector according to the pocket of effectiveness model,

the institutional reform could be more motivated by their congruence with the

institutional environment in which they evolve than by their efficiency (Gilardi,

2012). In that case, the ‘spill-over’ effect would respond to the process rather

than to the outcome.

A second way is the ‘bureaucratic contagion effect’, which might occur when

civil servants see another organisation performing well. This attention might be

awaken in public officials when there is some degree of intra-administrative

competition and some degree of commitment with the country’s development.

The third model presented by Roll is the ‘bureaucratic seed effect. In this case,

the potential to transform the public sector might take place when members of

pockets of effectiveness move to other organizations and take their commitment

with the public good, expertise and reform-mindedness with them.

There are at least two determinants of the potential impact of islands of

integrity in the wider system: the motivation behind the institutional reform,

and the interaction between internal institutional factors and the external

context.

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The motivation behind the institutional reform

Exceptional institutional performance requires the support of the political

authorities to exist (Roll 2013). The key question is whether the authorities are

primarily motivated to use that reform to preserve part of the system as it is

according to their own agenda, or whether there is willingness to expand it to

other areas of public life. The reason why islands of integrity, even if they are

successful in reducing corruption, keep being “islands” would likely be

different in each case.

In trying to discover why strong public institutions exist in weak patrimonial

states, Roll (2013) finds that the motivations driving actors to create pockets of

effectiveness can vary widely. Sometimes they are instrumental rational

motives, such as guaranteeing sources of income or protecting natural resources

from foreign interventions. In these cases, the spill-over to other public

institutions is likely to be limited.

For example, the success of the Surinam’s state oil company (Staatsolie) as a

pocket of effectiveness is in part explained by the strategic motive to do not let

the institution be influenced by political interests and favours. It is also

explained by Staatsolie’s use of its legal position to build an independent oil

company and to upgrade the technological and management expertise in

Surinam (Hout 2014). That strategic motivation was present from the

conception of the institution, created by the then military government in

Surinam with the purpose to enhance the effectiveness of the state’s presence in

the oil sector.

Data on Staatsolie’s impact could not be found. Nonetheless, the conclusion

Hout (2014: 28) reached from the analysis of this case supports the observation

that “a successful state-owned enterprise can coexist alongside inefficient

parastatals and a government bureaucracy infested with practices of patronage

and clientelism”. This suggests a reduced or non‑existent impact of Staatsolie’s

success in the wider system. The strategic motivation behind Staatsolie’s

creation suggests that the impact would be very much concentrated on the

company’s management.

In other cases, motivations respond to strong nationalist ideologies or the

understanding that change is necessary (Roll 2013). For instance, the

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motivation behind turning Brazil’s national development bank into a pocket of

effectiveness was to use it as a tool for modernising the state apparatus (Willis

2014). This broader and inclusive motivation of the whole state apparatus

suggests a greater possibility to for the success of the Brazilian development

bank to spill over to other public institutions.

Interaction with the external context

The extent of the impact of islands of integrity on the wider system is also

affected by the interaction of the institution with the external context. In

thinking about institutional impact, Kuwajima (2016) distinguishes between

contextual factors beyond influence and contextual factors within influence.

Beyond influence are socio-economic-political, structural and institutional

factors and actions of certain agents. The context within influence is, according

to Kuwajima (2016), the space in which functional and internal factors (such as

management style, performance orientation, mission, organizational autonomy)

of the institution proactively interact with external political and contextual

factors (like socio-economic-political factors, structural and institutional

factors, actions of external actors). Those interactions can have different

impacts, from creating culture to contributing to economic growth or building a

new relationship between governments and citizens based on trust.

Following an example from the development literature on pockets of

effectiveness, Kuwajima’s (2016) analysis of the Phnom Penh Water Supply

Authority (PPWSA) in Cambodia, identifies that the interaction between the

institution and the society was shaped by a shift in customer relations, which

rebuilt the public trust in the institution and created, as a consequence, a culture

of payment. What caused the shift in customer relations was the establishment

of a system to identify real costumers and introducing compulsory metered bill

collection, which helped the institution to create a culture of payment with

rigorous and differentiated strategies for egregious offenders and poor

communities.

A similar experience can be found in the city of La Paz, Bolivia, after the

implementation of the anti-corruption policy by the mayor, Juan del Granado

(in office from 1999 to 2010). The La Paz municipal government showed its

commitment to be at the service of the society, for example by the creation of

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the Continuous Improvement Units to help citizens in their bureaucratic

diligences and Transparency Units. That helped, among other aspects, to regain

the trust of the citizens followed by a growing public commitment to the public

good expressed in an increase in tax collection – the number of citizens paying

tax on real estate grew by 52 per cent from 2000 to 2004 (Zúñiga and Heywood

2015). Moreover, these improvements helped to restore the city’s financial

credibility and enabled it to attract funding from the World Bank and the Inter-

American Development Bank, both of which had previously been cautious

about lending to Bolivian institutions due to their reputation for malfeasance

(Zúñiga and Heywood 2015).

Another interaction identified by Kuwajima (2016) is how the reform of the

organisational culture of the PPWSA based on discipline, elimination of

impunity and strict application of rules, put into effect the legalisation of

autonomy (without effect between 1988 and 1993). A decree proclaimed in

1987 provided exclusive authority of the PPWSA to supply water in the city

and to collect fees, among other tasks. However, public disobedience and poor

quality supply prevented the fulfilment of that decree and, therefore, the

autonomy of the institution. This confirmed that the autonomy of an

organisation from undue politicisation cannot be simply granted in a

constitutional act but, instead, has to be earned (Kuwajima 2016). In this case,

the reform and effectiveness of the PPWSA helped to fulfil a legal instrument,

suggesting the potential power of islands of integrity to fill the frequent gap

between the existence of well-equipped legislation and the lack of its

implementation in some countries.

3. Challenges and opportunities for awider impact

Challenges

Islands of integrity offer a great potential to learn lessons that could be applied

to other institutions or contexts. However, that potential is reduced due to the

lack of a reliable methodology to identify and make successful cases visible. So

far, the most common methodology used to identify positive outliers is

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reputational: cases are selected because of an institution’s good reputation

(Peiffer and Armytage 2017). However, this methodology presents two main

limitations: i) cases are selected according to experts’ subjective perceptions

based on factors that influence public and expert opinions; ii) it overlooks

successful cases that have not been yet identified and do not have a strong

reputation.

To overcome these limitations, Peiffer and Armytage (2017) have developed a

three-stage methodology combining qualitative and quantitative research

methods. The first stage is the statistical identification of potential positive

outliers using predictive regression analysis based on data concerning bribery

reduction and household-level survey data on the payment of bribes to several

actors drawn from Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer

(GCB). The second stage is a vetting exercise consisting of a literature review

and consultation with in-country experts. The third stage is a rigorous

qualitative analysis involving fieldwork and semi-structured interviews with

local actors with two main purposes: to confirm or refute the potential positive

outliers statistically identified, and to assess why and how positive development

change occurred.

This methodology, which might constitute the first application of the positive

outlier approach to be applied to cases of corruption reduction, has helped to

identify cases such as Uganda’s health sector and South Africa’s police sector.

Opportunities

Islands of integrity offer opportunities to have a wide impact on the transfer of

knowledge from individuals to the community. For example, one way in which

knowledge transfer takes place is through the identification of hidden

knowledge held by certain individuals or groups in a community who are

enabled to find better solutions to problems while having the same resources as

their peers (Konovalenko and Singhall 2017). Islands of integrity offer the

opportunity to uncover alternative understandings and ways of institutional

performance against the norm and, in that sense, help to identify and

disseminate new knowledge.

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The potential impact of the transfer of knowledge is to facilitate a “paradigm

shift” that motivates community members to question old attitudes and

practices, replacing them with new insights (Konovalenko and Singhall 2017).

The amplification or dissemination of knowledge occurs when more and more

community members embrace the new social practices generated as a result of

the movements of knowledge from the individual realm to the collective.

In particular, islands of integrity can foster change in the wider system by

allowing the identification and externalisation of knowledge in two ways. One

is through the implementation of islands of integrity following a problem driven

iterative adaptation (PDIA) approach to find local solutions and include

multiple local agents in the process. PDIA can potentially generate knowledge

because it addresses complex situations without clear solutions and, often,

innovation happens out of the lack of alternatives. Moreover, PDIA approach

has the flexibility to adapt itself to the local circumstances, opening up the

possibility of uncovering hidden local knowledge.

A second way is to see islands of integrity as a platform that sheds light on a

new way of understanding public institutions – as institutions genuinely

committed to fighting corruption – and challenging existing institutional setups

and attitudes around corruption. This platform could foster a collective

questioning of attitudes and practices around corruption, and enhance new

practices regarding accountability and transparency among citizens and civil

servants (Konovalenko and Singhall 2017).

Another opportunity for a wider impact offered by islands of integrity is the

stimulation of innovation. Studies on positive deviants in development show

how the collective intelligence of positive deviants can stimulate innovation,

permitting people to experiment with new ways of doing things and improve

their living conditions under adverse socio-political circumstances (Prasad and

Hambly 2009). For example, in a community-based participatory plant breeding

project with farmers organizations in Nepal, one youth member had a positive

deviance behaviour when, contrary to the breeding procedures followed by the

other farmers, he developed his own rice variety. He used breeding lines that

were grown by the project with the vision of breeding a dry season variety of

rice with characteristics similar to one of the main season varieties to

potentially replace an obsolete dry season varieties (Prasad and Hambly 2009).

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That capacity could also be applied to islands of integrity, since they challenge

the status quo and introduce new approaches to old organisational structures

and institutional setups, promoting alternative mind-sets and approaches against

corruption.

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Exist in Weak States?. https://ssrn.com/abstract=2299284

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